Risk

Name:

Risk

Company:

Parker Brothers

Model #:

N/A

Programmer:

Steve Kranish

Year:

1983

Released?

No

Notes:

Despite being mentioned in
a catalog, the Atari 5200 version was never started.

Before they decided to try their hand at video games, Parker Brothers
(now owned by Hasbro) was originally a board game company. Founded
by George S. Parker in 1883, Parker Brothers was responsible for releasing
many enduring board games including Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, and Risk. Since
Parker Brothers owned the rights to all these famous games, it was only
natural that they'd want to make computerized versions. So in 1983
it was decided that Risk would be created for the Atari 8-bit computers
and Atari 5200.

As the title screen indicates, Risk is a game of world
conquest. The object of the game is to have your armies capture
all 42 territories on the world map. While the game can be played
with up to six players, the best Risk games are usually played with 3-4
players. At the start of the game, each player places one of their
armies in a territory until the entire map is 'claimed'. Once each
territory has at least one player in it, players can place additional
armies into each territory until all the armies are placed. At the
start of each turn, each player receives bonus armies to place. The
amount of bonus armies is determined by:

1. The number of territories the player occupies

2. The number of complete continents a player occupies

3. The number of matched Risk card sets he can exchange
for armies.

Once all the bonus armies are placed, the player can now
enter the attack phase of the game.

In the attack phase a player can mount an assault on a
territory owned by another player. The out come of the battle is
determined by a series of dice rolls (kind of like D&D). In
this version of the game, the computer takes care of all the dice rolling
and the player is only shown the result. The number of attack dice
rolled (1 to 3) is determined by the size of the attacking army. Therefore
a large attacking force would roll three dice, resulting more extreme
wins or loses (up to 3 at a time). A player may attack any neighboring
territory as long as he has at least two armies in the attacking territory
(no suicide 1 army charges).

Once the attack has begun the player may stop at any time,
if the attack is not stopped it continues until one army is defeated.
Once the defending army is defeated the conquering army moves anywhere
from one to three troops (depending on the number of dice rolled) into
the conquered territory (this is why you need at least two armies to attack),
although more troops can be moved in if the player desires. After
the attack phase has ended the player can than make a 'Strategic Move'
and move troops from one territory he owns to another.

The game continues in this fashion until one player
has completely conquered the world.

Since this prototype was never completed, there are some
differences and missing features in the game. This prototype appears
to be permanently set to three human players (the minimum required), while
the real board game can be played with up to six. This is due to
the fact that the computer AI was never implemented. Another change
is in the number of armies given to each player. In a normal Risk
game set up for three people each player would get 35 armies, however
in this version each player only receives 20 armies (perhaps this was
done to speed up the game?). Also missing in the prototype is the
outline of the world map, which was just starting to be worked on when
the game was canceled (notice how Alaska had started to be drawn).

Perhaps the biggest change in this prototype is that the
card deck is missing. In the real board game there is a deck of
cards which contain pictures of either a horseman, cannon, or solider,
along with the name of a territory. These cards are used to gain
more armies by matching pictures as follows:

1. Three of the same design (horseman, cannon, soldier)

2. One of each design

3. Any two cards plus a wild card

In addition, if any of the three cards in the match depicts
a territory the player occupies, he earns another two armies, which must
be placed immediately on that particular territory. Each player
draws one card for each new territory he has conquered at the end of a
turn.

The card deck was left out for two reasons: One, it was
really only used to speed up the game and therefore not was necessary
because the computerized version already moved at a fast pace. Two,
there was no way to show the cards that each player held without showing
them to everyone else. Due to these reasons, it was decided to leave
the card deck out of the game.

Although Risk was never completed, it's still a blast to
play. Since all the basic gameplay is intact, Risk is one of the
few incomplete prototypes that is actually fully playable. The computerized
version of Risk automates some of the dull tasks such as calculating the
number of armies each player receives, moving tokens, and rolling dice
(endless rolls of the die), which ultimately speeds up the game. The
automated cursor which automatically moves to the appropriate command
or territory is also a nice touch. It's a shame that Risk was never
completed, as it would have been a nice addition to the Atari 8-bit library.